Trusses have been used for many years in the construction of floors and roofs in buildings. In the 1950's, the introduction of the metal truss plate replaced plywood gusset plates and allowed for off-site manufacturing and long span trusses. Light steel trusses have been developed that utilize parts that are mass-produced by means of cold forming mills.
Currently, trusses are either assembled off-site or they can be assembled on-site on the ground or they can be stick built in the final position. Assembled trusses are lifted into place and secured to the walls. Temporary bracing is often added to ensure the joist remains sufficiently stabilized and held in place during construction. Finally, permanent bracing is added to the bottom chords, webs, and to the top chords (if sheathing is not applied directly to the chord or if the sheathing that is applied is not sufficient to provide the bracing strength). A considerable amount of effort is required to cut, fit, and install every piece from the truss chords/webs, to the bracing elements in the final roof. Codes and safety standards are also being constantly updated demanding strict compliance to construction standards and greater worker safety on construction sites. On many roof structures the geometry is very complex, requiring a great deal of layout work to be carried out and the need for many alternative type of connector arrangements and parts. Mass-produced products are easy to manufacture but are by nature difficult to customize and they require custom detailing and design for each project.
Accordingly it would be advantageous to have a metal truss architecture that enables for customization from the ‘point of sale’, a structural design and order system developed for end user needs with easy-to-assemble parts that are mass-customized. A user's needs would be surpassed if the system architecture is developed to conduct estimating, design, detailing, roll-forming, truss assembly and erection using information technology to simplify all phases of the value stream. It would be advantageous to have a structural truss system wherein all aspects of the supply chain are taken into account for the design of manufactured parts. It would be advantageous to have a truss system that could be assembled in such a way that the number of fasteners can be reduced and the number of layers to pass fasteners through are reduced. Since all members in a truss must be assembled together it would be advantageous to have the parts produced with markings that identify technical and geometric information required for assembly.
Having an architecture based on mass-customization this invention reduces the amount of procurement time and labour involved in the pricing, design, drawing, manufacture, assembly and installation of light steel trusses for roof and floor construction. This invention has been developed to simplify the procurement and assembly of trusses: to reduce overall system manufacturing costs, to enhance worker safety and to reduce assembly time and costs.